Real Estate Mitochondria

MARKET UPDATE – 16 AUGUST 2013

Well, well, well. As newspapers continue to spin their lies about a massive recovery in the marketplace, the truth is hidden away in real articles about real companies having to reveal their real dilemmas to their real shareholders. And oh how real the pain.

Stockland is a very large residential developer (Aussie’s largest I think) and boy are they in a mess. What did they have to report to shareholders, who demand to know exactly what’s going on with “their” company? Well, profit fell off a cliff, down 80 percent. Settlements were down nearly 45% in Victoria, whilst nationally, they fell 14%. It was reported that underlying profit, which doesn’t include one-off costs, was down 27 percent but net profit on a statutory basis was down, as I said, 80 percent. Residential profit fell from $198m to just $60m. It’s having to sell stock it owns in other companies to raise capital (possibly worse result in 2014? Who knows but they’re not saying – at least until they absolutely have to I guess). From a share price near $8.50 at the peak of the market, to a depth of near $2.50, its struggling to gain traction at near $3.60.